Preview: Severance from The Lorehounds & Properly Howard

[00:00:00] Okay David this is where we're supposed to choose a side green or black? John my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:25] Don't worry I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod but we seem to agree on one thing we both really like the show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds.

[00:00:36] And since we just finished recapping season one we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option and supercast listeners can get early ad-free access to

[00:00:47] each weekly scene by scene deep dive plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot but probably positive takes. The Lorehounds house of the dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption.

[00:01:03] Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book fire and blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. Hey everyone Alisha here.

[00:01:16] Big news on the Lorehounds network there is a new podcast in town perfect for science fiction fans especially severance fans. This new crossover podcast between David and John of the Lorehounds and Stephen Anthony of Properly Howard is starting with season one of Severance breaking it down episode

[00:01:34] by episode with a side of comedy so that there and you are ready to tackle season two when it begins in the new year. While I'm not involved in this podcast myself I've listened to the first couple of episodes and they're hilarious.

[00:01:47] I've got the complete spoiler free intro episode for you to check out yourself right here so give it a listen and if you like what you hear there's a link to the feed in the show notes. Don't pervert a handbook passage to me okay?

[00:02:10] You are listening to a Howard plus Lorehounds joint covering the Apple TV sci-fi Severance. We are doing that in conjunction with the Lorehounds so if you did a search for Severance Lorehounds you will find our Severance podcast.

[00:02:29] Steve and I are going to be doing an episode by episode rewatch and then John and David from the Lorehounds will join us every episode of season two. If you'd like to watch along with us and use this podcast as a companion it's a fantastic

[00:02:45] show I would call it hard sci-fi it's really funny some world-renowned actors Christopher Walken John Titoro Ben Stiller is the show runner and you can watch that on Apple TV Plus. Alright so I want to talk about Severance and I feel like you're almost the perfect person

[00:03:10] to comment on this show because this show is so deeply rooted in office life and you've spent the majority of your adult life in and around offices right? I'm an office boy. Yeah you're an office boy.

[00:03:28] I don't feel like a lot of that makes it into your stand-up material. It's almost as if you have a bifurcated life you've got your office persona and then you've got your stage persona. Yeah almost as if I don't have any recollection of one versus the other.

[00:03:48] That's right. That's right. Yeah it's funny because people you work with are constantly like oh you must get so much material from this place. Yeah I don't think I've ever heard you tell an office joke.

[00:03:59] Uh-uh I look at them and I'm like what about this environment is amusing. You just you think it's too boring to talk about? Yeah I'm like what am I gonna do I'm gonna just I'm gonna run no you can't wait to hear my next 10 minutes on pivot tables.

[00:04:16] Let's talk about the premise of the show. The premise of the show I think is an expansion or a caricature of the idea that most folks who work in an office develop something of an office persona

[00:04:30] that seems to be some somewhat related to their real personality but not necessarily. There's like this distinct difference between office Steve and domestic Steve or outside of office Steve. And so this show basically is you know taken to an extreme the show is saying well what

[00:04:53] if people only had memories of their office life while they were in the office and they only had memories of their outside life when they were not in the office. So complete severing of the two different halves of the personality.

[00:05:11] I really took that took away from it a lot of that idea that we say you know companies will say hey this is a great place for work-life balance and it's hard to divorce yourself

[00:05:22] of the two worlds right like that the idea of there to be true work-life balance would be work is work life is life but we do carry over right and like it's almost impossible

[00:05:33] to not be stressed out or to be stressed out at work and not have that carry over to when you get home and vice versa. So would you be attracted at all to a severance procedure if offered? Um no.

[00:05:46] No like is it because of the show because I think that if I hadn't seen the show I might think like boy it sure would be nice to just leave all of my work at the office and be fully present at home when I'm home.

[00:05:59] Yeah well that and that's the that's the allure right but there's the idea that it's like that's you're not just forgetting the work part of it you're forgetting every other aspect of it right every you know and so part of the

[00:06:15] reason why and that's the I you know and I think that's why this show does such a good job of taking it to that extreme is that for you to be good at your job you know you obviously have to have a certain amount of intelligence

[00:06:27] and training and all the things that goes along with that but there should be something about your other experiences that you've had that you can leverage right like I mean I think we see that a lot where you leverage experiences

[00:06:37] that you may have had in the workplace and you can maybe relate that to other power dynamics you may encounter outside of work but if you don't have any recollection that you that that's who you are outside of work or

[00:06:51] outside of home and it's you're you're missing something right so this show is a little bit of a horror thriller psychological sort of cautionary tale or something but I'll be honest if I had not seen this show I think I would

[00:07:05] be really attracted to a severance scenario I feel like it would just be really nice to only care about office politics in the office that to me that sounds highly desirable yeah I guess it's pretty I mean you're just not having

[00:07:25] that accountability it's a lot of time out of your day that you don't have any recollection of right I mean the idea of not having work stress is one thing but to take you know a third or more of your day and wipe it out

[00:07:40] sure well and that's I think that that's what you want to do your job you want to quit your job you want someone to implant a chip that makes you rich no see I think that would be or a chip that gets implanted that makes you

[00:08:00] content with being homeless if I could have that chip oh baby yeah I want to chip that makes me just a little less aware just maybe a little dumber see I think I would have been really attracted to that idea before the show because one

[00:08:20] of the things that the show brings out when you realize how messed up it actually would be is that what you're doing is you're creating a version of yourself that can never leave the office right so you are what you're

[00:08:35] doing is you're enslaving yourself yeah so it's that and that is an interesting way to look at it you know because I'm could you imagine like the in order for you to wake up every day never going to work a part of you has to wake up every

[00:08:48] day and never sleep because a version of you that never sleeps yeah they're rested right so they're rested it's like they live horrible because half of the I mean to always be rested never have an excuse to just lay down to

[00:09:04] walk into an elevator and then turn around and go back into that geez I mean it really is it really is turning the workplace into this weird psychological rat maze yeah because it's a turnstile right you go in you go out

[00:09:26] back to work in and go out back to work and so that's the thing that's interesting too about the way it's done I mean I obviously there's there's something that happens when they go through the elevator that gives them the

[00:09:37] ability to know that it's a new day right I'm as opposed to just go in with that go in fine come out with a headache because you're hungover like that's wild right that's a bit wild to go in just feeling gross and then immediately

[00:09:51] feel like you're you've just showered yeah or that you've just put on cologne or whatever it is are you a cologne guy no no nor am I my son's a big cologne

[00:10:01] guy about that age were you ever a cologne guy no we all had we all had a bottle of Dracar noir somewhere I mean look the closest I ever came to it was

[00:10:14] like my dad had a 50 year old bottle of old spice you know everything I don't get and I'd sniff it but there's no way I'm putting that stuff on and my dad had like cologne bottles that were like I don't know if they actually were what

[00:10:29] the cologne came in or if they if there was such a thing as like you could buy a different bottle to put the cologne in that was like more decorative because I remember he had like it looked like a clear old-timey car and there was some

[00:10:45] sort of nondescript cologne and there's like no label on it. Yeah, they used to do that with cologne bottles a lot they would actually you would want to shape the glass bottle as something masculine right like a ship or a car or something so it looks like you're

[00:11:00] actually like taking a hammer to your head but you're really just sprinkling it out of the spout that's enough. So that whole part of that whole part of your life is gone it's like you never that part of your life never takes

[00:11:14] a shower that part of your life never puts on cologne that part of your life never has a cigarette or a sip of alcohol or watches television it never leaves the office it owned that you're creating a creature out of your own

[00:11:31] personality that is enslaved within the office that that's the premise of the show right yeah and it creates it's like it's cloning without cloning sure yeah there you go and it creates a scenario where the they call these sort of

[00:11:46] personalities innies and outies mm-hmm and the outies have all of the power right so I'm about to get into the spoilers here okay so go watch Severance it's on Apple TV it's nine episodes for the first season

[00:12:03] beauty of it is you can pause this podcast yeah go watch it pick it up right where you left off and it's sort of like your innie at the office and you know slap on a little cologne before you come back yeah yeah again if you can get

[00:12:17] the track on okay David this is where we're supposed to choose a side green or black John my soul is as black as night your turn I am black for life so we're not fighting I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight

[00:12:54] and stuff don't worry I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod but we seem to agree on one thing we both really like the show the politics the drama the lore it was made for the Lorehounds and since we just

[00:13:07] finished recapping season one we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the dance of the dragons and with the season pass option and supercast listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene by

[00:13:19] scene deep dive plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections see you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot but probably positive takes the Lorehounds house of the dragon coverage is also safer team green consumption side effects may include a

[00:13:35] deeper understanding of dragon lore a hardened conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book fire and blood by George R. R. Martin dragon seeds may experience burning